free oscar grant was scrawled in black spray paint across the whitewashed wall of the bart underpass.

i shook my head as i passed. irritated because this is new graffiti on the recently painted wall…irritated more that someone missed the reality that you cannot free that which has been killed. oscar grant isn’t being held, he is long gone. and in his absence there is only the anger and distrust of a city divided against its “peacekeepers”.

further down the wall were post-it notes. laments for gaza. admonitions to isreal and the us for their presence there. and it is as international as it is local…the bullets and fallen sons and daughters.

shana just got back from turkey – among other places – and she has magnificent pictures from inside the blue mosque. the ceilings are so high. the walls inlaid with blue and white tiles. and even as i recognize that a mere photograph can never relate the true beauty of that place i was still caught in a moment of reverence just short of what i feel staring out at the crashing waves of any ocean, the undulating sands of any desert, the quiet majesty of redwoods.

and for the life of me…and the death of all those that have fallen for such senseless reasons as borders and bigotry…i can’t understand how we can create such beauty even as we are so bent on destroying it.

attention forward in anticipation of what this new era might bestow…humility, responsibility, and grace are the values i hope we embrace.